Virgin Prunes

History

The band consisted of childhood friends of U2's Bono. Lypton Village was a "youthful gang" created by Bono (né Paul Hewson), Friday (né Fionan Hanvey) and Guggi (né Derek Rowen) in the early 1970s, where every member received a new identity and where they could escape from dreary and predictable Dublin life and be anything they wanted to be. Friday and Guggi first gave the teenage Hewson his alter-ego and now-famous moniker (taken from "Bonavox", a hearing-aid shop on Talbot Street in Dublin City Centre), later shortened simply to "Bono". Known for their outrageous and controversial stage performances, led by theatrical singer/songwriter Friday, the band began playing small shows in Dublin, gaining them a cult audience and ridicule from the culturally conservative community.

Friday and fellow vocalist Guggi, along with third vocalist Dave-iD Busaras, guitarist Dik Evans (brother of U2's The Edge), bassist Strongman (Trevor Rowen, brother of Guggi) and drummer Pod (Anthony Murphy), completed the original lineup. Pod left the group and was replaced by Haa-Lacka Binttii (né Daniel Figgis). With Binttii on drums, tape loops and keyboards, the band secured a deal with Rough Trade Records. They released their first single, "Twenty Tens" on their own Baby Records label (distributed by Rough Trade) in late 1980, followed by a second single, "Moments and Mine", in early 1981.

Two other tracks recorded with Binttii were released during 1980 before conflicts with other members forced him out of the band. "Red Nettle" was included on NME compilation C81 and "Third Secret" appeared on Cherry Red compilation Perspectives and Distortion. Work had already started on the project "A New Form of Beauty" while Bintti was with the band, but after he was replaced by Mary D'Nellon (drums), some of his tracks were rerecorded and his name was not included in the credits.

"A New Form of Beauty" was a project that originally contained four chapters and was released in various formats - 7" single, 10" single, 12" single and a cassette. All four parts appeared on an Italian version of A New Form of Beauty, which was released as a double album, although with a different track listing to the cassette version.

In November 1982, the Virgin Prunes released their debut album ...If I Die, I Die (produced by Colin Newman of Wire) as well as Heresie, a French box set. Commissioned by Yann Farcy after seeing them perform at the Rex Club in Paris, Heresie was based on a loose examination of insanity. In 1984, both Guggi and Dik Evans, unhappy with the music business, left the band. This forced drummer D'Nellon to switch to guitar and allowed Pod to return as the band's drummer. The Virgin Prunes started to record but abandoned the album Sons Find Devils, which has never been released.

A retrospective video titled Sons Find Devils was released in 1985; this video had nothing to do with the unreleased album of the same name. In May 1985, rarities compilation Over the Rainbow was released.

In July 1986, the band, now a four-piece, finally released a new album, The Moon Looked Down and Laughed (including recordings of music written for Sons Find Devils). Later that year, Friday left the group. His departure was confirmed in the liner notes of the band's 1987 live album The Hidden Lie, which contained a short statement confirming the band's breakup.

After disbanding as Virgin Prunes, D'Nellon, Strongman and Busaras formed an offshoot group called The Prunes, which released three albums between 1988 and 1990 (1988's Lite Fantastik, 1989's Nada, and 1990's Blossoms & Blood. Dik Evans played on Lite Fantastik while 17-year-old Justin Kavanagh (aka Valley Limberg) from the Dublin hardcore band Mutant Asylum (now a member of Paranoid Visions along with his cousin Cormac Figgis, aka The Master Switch) took the helm as guitarist for "Blossoms & Blood". In 1993, Kavanagh went on to form Gormenghast and Snifferdog. Binttii's youngest brother, Jonathan Figgis, was the boy who appeared on the cover of the second Virgin Prunes single, "Moments and Mine".

In 1998, Cleopatra Records rereleased the Sons Find Devils video, along with a soundtrack album on CD. This was the first commercially available Virgin Prunes material to be released since 1993 and, for a few years, the only commercially available full-length Virgin Prunes album on compact disc (though studio recordings of the songs "Baby Turns Blue," "Pagan Lovesong," and "Caucasian Walk" had cropped up on various goth and post-punk CD compilations).

Friday went on to have a reasonably successful solo career in both music and film, while Guggi remained an influential artist in Dublin and Busaras continued to record as a solo artist in Ireland. After 20 years of self-imposed seclusion from the rock world, Dik Evans gave an overview of he and his brother The Edge's early years in U2 for the December 2005 issue of Word Magazine.

Daniel Figgis later became a composer and multimedia producer and curator, becoming composer in residence with Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown, Dublin. One of his compositions, "Post Production", a 23-section suite for four musicians, was performed at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City in December 2006. In 2008, the Arts>World financial centre commissioned Figgis to compose and perform the sole European commission to celebrate their 20th anniversary of arts programming. His multi-disciplinary festival, "Snakes & Ladders", appeared on Broadway on 8 January 2010 at Symphony Space.

The Virgin Prunes discography was remastered and reissued on Mute Records in 2004. The set of reissues included ...If I Die, I Die, The Moon Looked Down and Laughed, Over the Rainbow, Heresie and an album of selections from the A New Form of Beauty series. In 2006, Busaras, Guggi and Friday contributed a track to the sea shanty collection Rogue's Gallery, appearing in the track listing as Three Pruned Men.

On 4 October 2009, three original members of the band - Friday, Guggi and Dik Evans - performed two classic Virgin Prunes songs, "Sweethome Under White Clouds" and "Caucasian Walk", at Carnegie Hall as part of "An Evening with Gavin Friday and Friends", to celebrate Friday's 50th birthday. J.G. Thirlwell appeared with them as backing vocalist.

Studio albums

Live albums

Compilation albums

Singles & EPs

Videos

Literature